NAPA TRACS is an easy program to learn and maintain. We use it in a company with multiple locations

Pros

The ease of writing and updating work orders is fantastic. I like that you can do everything from writing purchase orders to checking history and updating recommended service from one screen. I also like being able to program it for a "check and balance" reminder so a ticket can't be invoiced without a PO being received or without a customer group and cause of failure being entered. It is nice to also limit access for different employee groups so that for example a technician in the shop looking up parts can't unlock or change an invoice. In our company with multiple locations, it will also allow us to link into or change shops for customer and vehicle information.

Cons

The system has a way of changing edited items back on its own. There isn't anything more frustrating than to quote a customer an estimate, only to find that when you originally had two parts on the estimate ( such as two rotors ), the system had changed it back to a quantity of one. The same thing occurs if you edit a price, it automatically changes back....frustrating if you don't realize before you invoice.

Be careful

The base program is great-lots of changes from legacy to enterprise-some good some not-many useful features from legacy not in enterprise-NAPA doesn't seem to be interested in suggestions from users-would recommend test driving before buying

Pros

works pretty good to do daily repair orders-has some very nice features to run my business-help desk has some of the best people ever-they know the product-usually get things done properly and quickly so you can carry on

Cons

For over 8 years I have been promised that "soon Tracs will allow industry wide ordering that works well" Not true! Unless you order 99% of your parts from NAPA you will not be happy. Every time I contact Tracs to find out when there will be a fix I'm given another excuse-in their defense I am using the software at no charge right now but I would much rather pay them and have the product they promised to deliver.

The old Napa Tracs worked , this doesn't

It actually ruins parts of my day, every day , try having a customer standing in front of you waiting for 3 estimates. I go to O'Reilly's website and look up the parts faster and type them into the Napa Tracs estimate or I would be here all day....

Pros

This category is asking for 40 words on what I like. I don't have 40 words. I have been in the automotive repair business for many years. there is nothing about this software that works for this business. Why fix what wasn't broken.

Cons

Work orders not easy to access, parts look up is way too complicated !!! I worked for Napa for 10 years so how to, and part numbers are not a problem for me. Takes the fast pace out of a a fast paced shop, the parts availability is like looking for gold, time consuming. Go look at O Reilly's website, please Simple, informative. The old Tracs had its flaws, but was very workable( daily I deal with at least 10 invoices a day.). . click on an invoice and go. Now you spend literally 3 minutes trying to get the invoice to alphabetize. Just to open it.

This is the only autoshop mgmt software we've used; so for what it's worth, I do recommend it

Pros

We are a growing company and Tracs has helped us with our growing pains. We've been using Tracs for just over 3 years and there are many features we haven't utilized yet, but are looking forward to using. One of my favorite features is the subestimate. You can create as many as you need under one work order and using ProDemand estimating makes it easy for even office staff to create estimates.

Cons

When you accept partial payment on an invoice, it prints the payment type and amount on the invoice, but it also prints PAID in bold letters next to the total. There is no balance printed. There is no ability to apply bulk payments to individual invoices without going into each invoice and accepting payment. Also, I wish there was something in the Customer Account Summary that indicated which invoices were paid and which are outstanding. The statement seems to only apply it to the oldest invoice, even if you apply it within the invoice instead a bulk payment. RepairLink doesn't support Heavy Duty through Tracs.

Is a good program. It could be a lot better.

For the most part, the program isn't too bad. It is relatively user friendly. In the "Cons" block is a list of issues that were noticed and some ideas that could make the system more user friendly.

Pros

The Schedule is easy to use. Ordering parts is very easy. ROs are clean and easy to read.

Cons

Shows another workstation in WO when they are not Unable to edit Part number Shows zero communication to order (1 on RO, 0 on PO; none in stock) If unsaved "New" RO is Open, will Default to that one when trying to start another New RO Anytime a RO is started, it should generate an appointment block Under "Appointments" tab, allow limiting to a single day. Receive all open PO’s at once Can’t drag an item to the bottom, sometimes have trouble dragging the bottom item up Put key tag number box in appointment window An option to not print “repair notes” on job ticket Merging vehicles sometimes erases the history of vehicle moved Better highlighting of which Sub-Est is open When doing a “history” search, after taking action (invoicing) going back to the search list, it is not updated, (still shows as a repair order) Canceling a RO should delete the appointment When adjusting price, amount does not highlight. Needs more info when VIN decoding (is it 4X4 for example) Automatically save and close a RO after __ (20?) minutes of inactivity. Show how the backup is progressing A real nice addition, be able to highlight text At times, the system moves very slow and freezes, requiring a soft restart of TRACS. This can cause all updates to a RO to be lost.